U.S. court hearing set in Strauss-Kahn civil lawsuit

December 04, 2012|Joseph Ax and Noeleen Walder | Reuters

(Gonzalo Fuentes Reuters, REUTERS)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lawyers for former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault were ordered on Tuesday to appear in New York state court next week to brief a judge on the status of settlement talks in the maid's civil case against him.

The setting of the court date comes just days after a source familiar with the matter said the two sides had reached a preliminary agreement to settle the case.

In a two-paragraph order issued Tuesday, Justice Douglas McKeon, the Bronx County Supreme Court judge overseeing the case, also ordered the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, to appear "if the action is settled" to approve the terms in open court.

The order did not mention Strauss-Kahn and it is unclear whether he would travel to New York for the hearing.

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers in the United States and France have acknowledged that a deal was under discussion but said last week that no settlement had been reached. They denied a report that the 63-year-old had agreed to pay Diallo $6 million to end the lawsuit.

The scheduling of the status conference, however, may signal that a final deal has been reached.

A source familiar with the case said the amount of any settlement would likely be the subject of a confidentiality agreement.

Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn in Paris declined to comment. An attorney for Diallo also declined to comment.

Diallo accused Strauss-Kahn of attacking her in his luxury hotel room in Manhattan on May 14, 2011. The allegations led to Strauss-Kahn's arrest, forced his resignation from the IMF and destroyed his status as a frontrunner for the French presidency.

The criminal charges were dropped in August 2011 after New York prosecutors developed doubts about Diallo's credibility. Diallo filed the civil lawsuit against Strauss-Kahn a few weeks before the case was dismissed.

Strauss-Kahn, who has said that the encounter with Diallo was a "moral error" but was entirely consensual, filed a countersuit against her, claiming defamation.

Even as the U.S. case appears close to an end, Strauss-Kahn is awaiting a decision by a French court on December 19 on whether to call off an investigation involving parties in Lille attended by prostitutes, where he risks trial on a charge of "aggravated pimping.

In recent months, Strauss-Kahn has been making an under-the-radar comeback with a handful of speaking engagements at private conferences and by setting up a business consultancy firm in Paris.

If the Lille case is dropped and Diallo ends her civil lawsuit, Strauss-Kahn would be freer to pursue his consultancy work and could even consider a return to public life in France, where he has been shunned since the Diallo scandal.